Demonic Po*nstar System Chapter 807: Ashborn Trio in Action
Previously on Demonic Po*nstar System...
"Go, Kai," Aria’s voice echoed from her vantage point above the fray, composed and definitive. Her silver-violet crescents swiftly tilted for another assault, her rhythm unbroken. She didn’t glance down at him.
Bastet gave her assent. "We didn’t choose to ascend in this battle merely for you to remain here and hold our hands, Master."
Luna alighted on the remains of a Wraithstride she had just vanqu Khi, crimson lightning still arcing from her shoulders. Her grin was sharp and utterly fearless. "We declared it: sink or swim. So permit us to swim!"
Calypso wrenched her axe free from the beast she had impaled it in and met his gaze, the fervor ignited within her by the youngsters fueling every syllable. "Go, Darling. We shall await your return."
Kaiden regarded them.
Five women stood their ground at the bottleneck, their weapons slick with blood, their eyes devoid of any trace of apprehension. He had perpetually understood their capabilities, witnessed their resilience through every shared conflict, their unwavering growth, and he was the sole individual who had consistently prevented them from demonstrating their prowess to anyone but himself.
He clenched his jaw.
"So be it."
Then, with a heart heavy with weariness, his gaze conveyed a wish for their success, and he turned away from the front line. Dispersing his twin greatswords back into the Gauntlet’s reserves, he fled.
Alice’s halo tightened against the nape of his neck as the surge of acceleration took hold, her luminescence narrowing to a pinpoint as they distanced themselves from the frontline. The portal discharged another influx of figures into the Safe Zone within his peripheral vision, and he did not look back.
Behind him, the battle formation held its breath for precisely one beat.
The combat had not ceased. Scarlet’s inferno continued to incinerate any entity transgressing the kill zone, and the portal persisted in disgorging attackers. However, the center of the formation was now vacant. The space once occupied by Kaiden’s twin blades underwent a transformation, and every woman along the line sensed the impact of that void settle in their chests before the subsequent onslaught.
Luna was the first to break the solemnity.
Her impish grin slowly spread across her face, red lightning still dancing along her arms. "You realize... after all the formidable declarations we just made, if we actually perish now, we’ll be the most memed women on the internet until the end of time."
Aria’s tone was more subdued than moments prior. "That matters little to me. What concerns me is that we would shatter Kai’s heart."
The resolve of the line solidified instantaneously. Calypso’s grin hardened. Bastet’s bare feet dug deeper into the stone. Nyx exhaled audibly through her nose, reinforcing her barrier around the formation. Causing him heartbreak was the singular outcome none of them were willing to accept.
They redirected their focus toward the portal, and the ensuing wave encountered women who were resolute in shedding the role of mere ‘kiddos’.
"Let’s rock, bitches!" Luna bellowed, blazing with unprecedented intensity as she transformed into pure lightning.
...
Kaiden navigated the rearward path through his own dominion. The Abyssal Corridor enclosed him within eight meters of narrow stone, followed by the Twilight Sink, a kilometer-wide expanse of bioluminescent mist that would have bewildered any entity not sovereign to the realm. The distortion field yielded to its Master, and he traversed it at a full sprint.
The Verdant Expanse greeted him on the other side—lush, temperate, and open—with the cathedral discernible at its distant end. Home. Taigi stood at the treeline, forty-six Dungeon Borns clad in bronze armor arrayed behind her, the ultimate fallback defense already established and prepared. The fleeting exchange of glances as Kaiden crossed the meadow communicated all that was necessary.
He halted at the edge of the Verdant expanse.
Thirty meters below lay the Virulent Mire, nestled within its sunken basin. From this height, its three atmospheric strata were visible in sectional view: a shimmering carpet of ground spores at the lowest level, motionless, knee-high clouds above them, and a dense vapor clinging to the basin’s ceiling, which consumed light. The air rising from the rim already created a faint burning sensation at the back of his throat. Anything that inhaled the atmosphere down there without protection would perish within moments.
The Blood Monarch’s Gauntlet pulsed on his wrist. Kaiden drew harvested blood from the reserves within his vambraces and, with a fluid motion, applied it across his lower face. The blood solidified into a sealed, dark mask, extending from the bridge of his nose to his chin, effectively sealing his airways behind a barrier that the spores would need to consume before reaching his lungs.
Then, he plunged over the edge.
<The two of us, alongside Mom...!> Alice’s telepathy resonated, bright and ecstatic, within his skull, her halo flaring above his head. <The Ashborn trio, fighting as one for the very first time! This is going to be incredible!!>
"Don't tempt fate," Kaiden murmured, yet the corner of his mouth quirked upward behind the mask.
The cacophony of battle reached Kaiden's senses before the sight of it. The clashing of shadow and stone, accompanied by the sickening squelch as something massive was plunged into an equally unyielding mass, reverberated through the Mire's misty veil. As the noxious fumes ahead of him dissipated, he laid eyes upon her. Vespera was already immersed in the thick of the conflict. Her shadow constructs, resembling hooked cables, ensnared the vanguard of the gluttonous horde. These tendrils burrowed into the foremost creature's distended flesh from six distinct points. The monstrosity she was currently dismembering was now twice its size from when it had appeared in the dungeon's memory. Its cherry-red hide was stretched taut over the vast quantity of river water it had ingested. Trailing behind it, the procession of bodies extended back into the murky depths, pressing forward relentlessly. The Mire's toxic layers swirled around them, yet they seemed unfazed. Kaiden reformed his twin greatswords from the energy stored within his vambraces, the Gauntlet emitting a single pulse as the blades materialized. He spun them in opposing arcs at his sides, the harvested blood along their edges humming as the steel rotated. "Let's do this, Alice."